


O' City Lights

by old_blue



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Murder, Mystery, Other, POV Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/old_blue/pseuds/old_blue
Summary: After getting a tip, Eddie and Venom investigate reports of homeless kids missing from the streets of San Francisco. Eddie worries there might be a serial killer lurking in the alleys of the Mission District. Venom's just trying to understand humanity.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 9
Kudos: 64
Collections: Venom Big Bang 2020





	O' City Lights

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Illustrations for the story "O' City Lights"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29042574) by [mific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific). 



> Thanks so, so much to my two lovely betas, mific and oldtoadwoman. You've made this so much better! And thank you, mific, for the lovely art! It's wonderful.
> 
> Title from the song _**O’ City Lights**_ by Gregory Alan Isakov

_Dear Brenda Oviedo,_

Eddie sits still for a minute, staring at the words on the computer screen. “ _Fuck_ ,” he mutters, and stabs at the delete key, erasing everything.

_Dear Mrs. Oviedo,_

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit!” He erases that, too, and twists the ring on his index finger, still staring at the screen.

This is not a normal writing pattern for Eddie. He usually writes fast, words pouring out of him, typos and all. He’ll sit, sometimes for hours, just writing, the words forming on screen almost as quickly as they appear in his head, until Venom has to force him away from the computer, has to remind him that he needs to pee, that they're starving.

Their host finally stirs. He sighs, and types:

_Mrs. Oviedo,_

_You don't know me, but I felt I had to reach out to you. I knew your daughter—_

Eddie abruptly pulls his hands away from the keyboard, almost like it might burn him. He shuts the laptop and sits back in his chair, staring out the window at the brick wall across the alley.

Venom oozes out and pools on Eddie’s shoulder, presses against his neck. **“Do you want to talk about it?”** It's what a human would say, if their partner was troubled. Venom has watched enough TV to know that.

Eddie snorts like that's funny. “No. Not really.” He taps his foot on the floor. “Hey, you wanna go out?”

It's two in the morning, which means all the restaurants are closed, which means…

**“Heads?”**

He takes another moment to answer, still tapping. “Yeah. You're hungry right?”

Venom wishes Eddie would just say it: _they're_ hungry, the two of them, the combined _them_. But Eddie’s not willing to admit that he's a part of what they do. Not yet.

 **“Starving,”** they say.

They go out on foot. It's a perfect night for a Klyntar—chilly and damp. The wind has subsided enough to let fog gather and pool around the tops of the tall buildings, obscuring the lights from their windows. The constant sounds of the city are muffled by darkness and suspended water molecules. A perfect night out for a Klyntar with a good host.

Eddie calls it _fall._ Venom doesn't have much experience with Earth seasons yet. The last few months have been too hot and sunny. They already like fall better.

Eddie likes fall, too, but fall makes him think of winter, and winter makes him think of New York. And that makes him uneasy. Eddie never thinks concretely about this feeling, he just remembers dirty snow and cold wind, frozen trash in alleys.

Eddie takes them down quiet streets, walking almost aimlessly, until they reach the heart of the Mission.

And, there, they get their first bite.

They can hear the person before he rushes up behind them, grabs Eddie’s shoulder, puts a short blade to their back.

“Wallet and phone.” His voice is a soft rasp, a slight tremble.

“Okay, man.” They turn around slowly. “Just take it easy,” Eddie says. As soon as they see the person, Venom knows they’ll have to let this one go. It’s just a youngling, small and thin and stringy, barely worth eating. Eddie wouldn't, anyway.

The youngling panics when their eyes meet. “Turn the fuck around! Don't look at me!” He points at them with his tiny knife, but his hand is shaking. “Give me your wallet.”

“No,” Eddie says.

The youngling’s eyes go wide. “The fuck…?” he says.

“I think you should get off the streets, kid,” Eddie says. His voice is gentle, compassionate even. He feels bad for this young human. “Sooner or later, you're gonna run into someone who’s more dangerous than you are.”

That's their cue. They surge up out of Eddie’s skin.

The youngling’s eyes go even wider as he stares up at them. He drops the tiny knife and the smell of urine blooms in the air.

 **“Someone like us,”** Venom says, and grins.

He runs, arms and legs a blur, skittering around the block. And then they're alone again on a quiet street.

Venom sinks back down under Eddie’s skin reluctantly. But who knows who might be watching. _**Should’ve eaten him,**_ they grumble. They’re hungry enough to eat anything, even a bony, young human.

“Nah,” Eddie says. He's still watching the corner where the youngling disappeared.

They start wandering again. Eddie has an odd, shuffling gait that Venom only recently noticed is different from the way most humans walk. Eddie knows most people will assume he’s drunk, especially when they're out on the streets this late. That suits their purposes just fine.

The next one they meet isn't so lucky.

They can hear him as he follows them into the alley, his breath rattling in his lungs, the scent of him sweet and rotten like sickness. This one’s old enough, body already failing. Venom quivers in anticipation.

Eddie turns around and manages to say, “Wha…?” And then the man’s arm punches out at them. Pain flashes hot and cold in their side—Eddie’s nerves sending frantic messages up to his brain.

The guy jumps back, watching them, hand tight around the hilt of the knife he stabbed them with.

They look down at the hole in their shirt, then back up. “Ow,” Eddie says.

The man keeps staring at them, presumably waiting for them to fall down, or run, or do something. Anything? Eddie smiles, instead, showing off his crooked teeth. “Aw, man. You shouldn't have done that.”

They erupt out of Eddie’s skin, open their jaws, and bite the guy’s head off. Which is as delicious as they’d hoped it would be. The rest of him is a little tough.

Venom sinks back under Eddie’s skin, finally satisfied, and they slip into the dark alley to digest their meal. It stretches a fair bit away from the main street, winding between the old brick buildings like a narrow canyon. Fog has settled closer to the ground in here and the hulks of dumpsters loom in the darkness.

“ _Fuck_ , man. I liked this shirt,” Eddie says out loud, absently rubbing at the now-healed skin of his abdomen, the hole in the fabric.

Venom liked it, too, because Eddie liked it. But it's just a thing they can replace—Eddie has a lot of shirts that look the same. They hum in response. They're enjoying feeling full for the first time in weeks.

Eddie finally looks around the alley. “Creepy,” he mumbles. Eddie likes to talk when things are too quiet.

 _ **Not creepy. Just dark.**_ And peaceful. They like the feeling of being hidden, of being secret. They can do whatever they want, but it's nice to be alone with just the two of them sometimes in this crowded city full of humans.

Eddie leans against the brick wall, tips his head back, and closes his eyes. He's still breathing hard, adrenaline rushing alongside the red blood cells in his plasma, racing through his arteries. It feels like electricity. And it makes them _want…_

They _want_ Eddie.

Venom wants to fuck him right here, against the wall. They long to take their full form without Eddie’s help, give their host everything he dreams about, the fantasies he buries deep down where he thinks they're hidden.

They will have to settle for pinning him against the wall and—

A flash of movement down in the deepest part of the alley, and they're instantly on alert again. Eddie pushes away from the wall, moving his head around slightly to better see in the dark.

“Hello?” he calls.

 _ **If it's a rat, I want to eat it.**_ They can't smell a rat, though, or hear the telltale scrabbling of tiny claws on concrete. They can't sense anything at all in the darkness.

Eddie makes a disgusted noise—he has _opinions_ about eating rats that are even more confusing than his opinions about eating people. “Is someone there?” he says.

The fog seems to become denser for a moment, harder to see through, and then a human-shaped shadow steps away from the wall of the alley and out of the gloom. “Yeah. _I'm_ here,” a voice says.

It's another youngling. Female, according to Eddie. Her hair is long and light—not quite as light as Anne’s hair. Her skin is white, almost glowing. Her clothes are all black, fading into the dark behind her.

Eddie breathes out, relaxing, scratches the back of his head—another tic he relies on to relieve tension. “Oh, hey, kid. Sorry. Didn't see you back there.”

She looks perfectly normal, but Venom can't smell her at all. Can't taste her on the air.

Eddie doesn't think that's weird. _She’s just homeless,_ he says to them. _Just a street kid, can't be more than seventeen. She's harmless._

Venom grunts. Of course she's harmless—almost everything is harmless to them.

The youngling clutches her arms across her chest. “I'm not a kid,” she says.

Eddie chuckles. “Sure, yeah. Sorry. My apologies. Uh… you didn't just see anything back there, did you? I mean, just now?”

_**She’d be running away if she had.** _

“See what?” She takes a step closer. And now Venom can see more clearly what Eddie must have already noticed—her clothes are mismatched layers, worn out or torn in places, and they are far too big for her thin body. There's a dark bruise around the white skin of her neck, darker circles under her eyes.

Eddie feels a pang of sympathy, and a deep-down sadness that Venom can't quite understand. It feels _old_ , like it’s been living inside him for a long time. “Nothing,” he mutters.

“You're that reporter, aren't you? Eddie Brock?”

Eddie’s always surprised when people recognize him. He's wary, too, lately, instead of pleased. “Uh, yeah. That's me,” he says carefully.

“I saw your show a few times way back when it was on. I'm really good with names and faces. I always remember. I've seen you around here a few times.”

“You have?”

Venom doesn't remember seeing her at all. They would've remembered seeing someone with no smell.

“Yeah,” she says.

“Look…” Eddie takes a hesitant step toward her and then away again. “You need some help or something, kid? I know a safe place you could stay tonight, or however long you want. It's run by a friend of mine. She's great—”

“I don't need help,” the youngling snaps. “And I'm not a damn kid! I can take care of myself.”

Eddie shrugs, like her rejection of the offered help hasn’t hurt him. “Sure. Yeah. You stay safe then. I'll see you around.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, turns toward the mouth of the alley, the lights of the street.

“Wait! Don't go yet. I've got something to tell you. I wanted to find you. That's why I came here tonight. I've got information.”

Eddie turns back around, amused now. “Oh yeah? What sort of information?”

“A tip, like, or a lead… about a story you could write for the newspaper. About some fucked up shit that's been happening around here to people like me.”

“Yeah?” Eddie’s thinking that the next thing she’ll do is ask for money. He tries to remember if he has any cash he can give her, so she can go get something to eat. She might buy drugs with it, but he has to hope for the best.

“I don't want money,” she says, as if reading his mind. “I want you to write a story. So people will know what happened.”

“Okay, kid.” Eddie reaches into his pocket and pulls out the little notebook and a pen that he always takes everywhere, even out on their hunts. He flips to the first blank page. “Let's hear this tip.”

She frowns—maybe she really doesn't like to be called _kid_?—but then she starts talking. “A few months ago… my… my friend was murdered. And I know the guy that did it. I'm pretty sure she's not the only one he’s done it to. He goes around picking up kids, you know—off the street—offers ‘em money if they’ll go with him. I saw her get into his car, and no one’s seen her again after—”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down… Your friend was murdered?”

She nods, clutching her arms tighter, fingers digging into dark fabric.

“Have you gone to the police about this?”

“No. I don't trust ‘em.”

“Okay.” Eddie nods. He doesn’t trust the police either. “I get it. But I'm just a washed-up reporter. And if your friend was really murdered, that's some serious shit. I think you should go to the police. Not all of them are dicks. I can hook you up with someone I know who—”

“I… I can't. I just _can't_ ,” she says.

“Okay,” Eddie repeats, and that old sadness rises up again. Venom can't yet tell what it's about, where it comes from. But whatever she's saying seems to resonate with something from Eddie’s past, something that Eddie won’t let coalesce into a recognizable memory. Venom is curious, but they won't dig into Eddie’s mind to find out, even though they could.

“Okay,” Eddie says, “how long ago did this happen?”

“I don't know. Maybe a year ago? It was winter… I think.”

Eddie writes _maybe winter._ “Winter this year. Or winter last year?”

“I don't know.”

“What’s your friend’s name? The one who was murdered.”

“I…” She hesitates for a long time. “I don't know.”

Eddie’s pen stills on the paper and he looks up. “You didn't know her name?”

She shrugs. “Everyone just called her Em.”

“What's _your_ name? Can you at least tell me that?”

She shakes her head, chews on a ragged fingernail, and stares back at them.

Eddie sighs, but Venom knows he's going to help. Eddie always wants to help, even when no one seems to want him to.

“Okay, kid. Give me everything you got,” he says, “and I'll see what I can do.”

* * *

When Eddie opens his laptop the next morning, he freezes, staring at the letter he started yesterday but didn't finish, the letter he’s been thinking about writing for a long time, hands just hovering over the keyboard. Finally, he closes the document and starts searching through news sites for reports of missing younglings.

Venom knows he’s not going to write anything today.

* * *

After lunch, they ride through the city to Mission Bay. Eddie parks the bike behind a newer building made of glass—a police station. Venom doesn’t like the police, but Eddie’s been here before many times, according to his memories. Mostly to see different people about stories or to get information.

Eddie goes through a metal detector at the front doors and gets a badge. People recognize him and wave and smile as they pass by and get into an elevator. Eddie smiles and nods back, but he's nervous. Eddie doesn't like it here, either.

 _ **Why are we here?**_ Venom asks. Eddie has been thinking about a lot of different things all morning in a very disorganized way—it's hard to keep track.

“There's a detective here who might be able to help us out. To help that girl we met last night,” he adds.

Venom grunts. They still don’t like the police. They don't like their guns, or the way Eddie has to hide how he's feeling to get what he needs.

They step out of the elevator into a room with desks and people. Eddie seems to know his way around—relief floods his mind when he sees something. He strides toward a desk near the back of the room, toward the person sitting at it, working at a computer.

This person is female, Venom decides. It took them a long time to be able to tell males and females apart without Eddie’s help. Probably because humans are such a morphologically variable species and their clothes follow no discernible pattern. The person in front of them has her hair in long bundles, pulled back and tied. _Dreadlocks in a ponytail_ , according to Eddie. There’s gray in the hair—the sign of an older human—but her face looks young, unlined. Her skin is darker than Eddie’s.

The female holds up one hand. “Stop right there.”

Eddie freezes.

“Now turn around and walk your ass back outta here.”

“ _Ange…_ ” Eddie whines.

“Don't _Ange_ me, Brock. I don't have time for you right now.”

Eddie smiles and tilts his head to the side. “Aw, come on, Ange. You don't even know what I'm gonna say.”

She kicks her chair back from the desk. “Doesn't matter. Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it.”

“You know I wouldn't bother you unless it was something good, right?”

She stares at them for a long moment, before she turns her face up to the ceiling and groans. “I need a smoke, anyway,” she says. “You've got five minutes, Brock.”

* * *

They follow the female through a door at the back of the room, and up a few flights of concrete stairs. At the top, they come out on the roof of the building. It's cool and bright out. Eddie has to squint into the sun and the wind.

 _ **She's not dressed like the other police,**_ Venom says. She has a gun, though—they can see flashes of it under her jacket, near her belt.

 _She’s a detective,_ Eddie says to them. _She doesn't have to wear a uniform._ He's not bothered by this person, like he was by the others, even though she has a gun.

The detective walks right up to the edge of the roof and leans against the railing, staring out onto the parking lot and the water beyond. Eddie approaches more slowly, stops a few feet away. Venom wants to push him forward to the wall, so they can get a better view, but Eddie hates when they do that. The wind off the bay whips their short hair back and forth.

The detective pulls a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket. She cups a little flame in her hand, lights up a cigarette, and sucks smoke into her lungs.

She holds the pack out to them. “You?”

Eddie wants one. _No_. He _craves_ one.

Venom grumbles, _**Poison, Eddie.**_ Even Eddie knows it's poison. Their host is so foolish sometimes.

_Yeah, yeah…_

“No, thanks. I quit,” Eddie says to her. He sounds disappointed about it.

The detective shrugs, closes her eyes, and sucks on the cigarette again, blows out another cloud of noxious smoke. Venom prevents Eddie from inhaling until it dissipates in the wind.

Without opening her eyes, she says, “Five minutes, Brock. Go.”

Eddie huffs. “Yeah, okay. So, I got a possible lead on some missing kids. Kids you guys might not know yet to look for. Street kids, I mean. My informant says some of them might be the work of one guy. That he’s been hanging around and soliciting kids for a while now, down in the Mission. My informant saw her friend get in his truck and drive off. Says she never saw her friend again. She suspects the guy murdered her.”

The detective finally opens her eyes. “A serial killer, Brock? Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I know how it sounds, Ange, but I think there's something here. I checked into it, went through some missing persons reports—there was a definite upward trend in the number of homeless kids reported missing by their families in the last five years. Plus those reported by friends as missing. And—”

She snorts. “Been an upward trend in the number of homeless kids _period_.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Eddie scratches the side of his head. He’s worried she won’t take this seriously, doesn’t believe him. “Even accounting for that, there's still too many missing over the past few months. Look, I know most of them are probably still out there, or they've moved on, or maybe they just don't want to be found. But I think it's worth looking into. Whoever this guy is, he's been careful. And he's out there, Ange. He’s killing kids.”

“What's the murdered girl’s name?”

“Her nickname was Em. My informant didn't know her real name.”

“Who’s your informant?”

He shakes his head. “I can't say. She's in a vulnerable spot still. But, _but_ ,” he says, cutting the detective off when she opens her mouth, “she gave me a vehicle make and model, and a plate number. _And_ she says she can ID the guy if she saw him again. White guy, mid-forties, balding.”

The detective sucks on her cigarette again, and looks out across the water, but she doesn't say anything in response. She's thinking.

Eddie waits. Eddie doesn't like silences, likes to fill them with talking, but he knows when to shut up, too. When it matters.

“We have noticed,” she says, finally, and looks back over at Eddie. “The missing kids. _I've_ noticed. It's obvious to anyone who cares, anyone who’s been watching the streets, looking out for them. But I can't get my boss to authorize a formal investigation. Not without evidence of an actual crime. And not without a family coming forward to make a formal report. I've tried. But we’re down to the bare bones, budget-wise. And some of these kids…” She waves her cigarette out over the street below, at the flat water beyond. “You know why they're out there in the first place, Brock. No one’s missing them back home.”

“Yeah. I know, but just… just give me a chance here, Ange. Let me do some of the legwork for you, and I’ll bring you what I find. You know I work cheap.”

She smiles a little bit at that. “What do you need?”

“Info on a commercial plate registered to a white Toyota Tacoma. Plate number 69374L1. Not sure on the year. Any missing persons reports that fit the pattern, or that you think might be worth looking into. I need approximate dates these kids went missing.”

She finally turns her body toward them, eyes shrewd. “What’re you thinking?”

He shakes his head. “I don't know yet. My informant said the guy drove a truck that had some equipment in the back, like he was involved in construction. A nice truck. Maybe a foreman or the owner of a company.”

She makes a sound that could be agreement or dismissal. Venom can't tell. But Eddie seems triumphant. She’ll help them.

She takes one last, deep drag on her cigarette and flicks the butt out over the edge. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do. But you have to promise me, Brock… If you get something, you come to me first. Don't publish anything behind my back. Don't do anything stupid that might fuck up an investigation like this. Give me a chance to do my job, okay?”

Eddie nods, excitement rushing through him. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Ange.”

They’re doing this. They’re on the case.

* * *

Eddie bolts upright in bed. He's sweating and his heart is racing.

It's very early in the morning, before dawn. He was dreaming again. Of scratching at smooth glass walls and breaking his fingernails off, slamming his palm against them again and again until he thought his hand might break. Of screaming for help until his throat grew raw. For anyone to come, for mercy, for forgiveness. Terrified of the thing inside of him. The thing that’s eating him up.

Not Eddie's wild imagination this time. They're memories. But they're not _his_ memories, Venom knows. They're _her_ memories.

They keep something—an echo, maybe—from every host, every creature they've inhabited, that they’ve shared their life with. Not too many still, compared to most of their kind, but more than a few. Some leave more of an impression than others.

If they ever returned to join with their kind again, they’d share these memories with the hive, let them bleed into the rest of the collective experience. Be rid of them. But they don’t ever want to return, and they have no one else to share them with. They try to keep those memories from seeping out into Eddie, but they're so intertwined now, so connected in every way, that it's difficult.

Eddie puts his hands over his face. His breath shudders in and out of his lungs, like the air in the room has too little oxygen.

Venom comes out and curls around him, squeezes until Eddie relaxes and his heart slows down—the closest they can come to an embrace. It's good enough. It's perfect.

Eddie’s hands drop down into his lap. “What was she like?” he asks. “At the end?”

Venom knows what Eddie’s asking. They could lie, or misdirect, but Eddie is a journalist and he values the truth above all else.

 **“Afraid,”** they say.

There's a sharp stab of hurt inside Eddie, almost as sudden as the knife’s blade last night, but he just nods. “Okay,” he says. It's what he expected, but still didn't want to hear. He gets out of bed and walks to the bathroom, splashes cold water on his face.

Eddie thinks about the dream all through their breakfast—scrambled eggs and hash brown potatoes with hot sauce on them. It's Venom’s favorite of their regular breakfasts, but they can't enjoy it this morning. Not with Eddie feeling like this.

The Klyntar hive mind has nothing like regret. No room for such a nonsensical idea. Things happen and the past can't be changed. There's no purpose to such an emotion. It's maladaptive. It's pain only for the sake of pain.

Venom can't find a way to articulate this thought to Eddie without sounding like a dick, though.

 **“You can't change the past,”** they say. This is something humans tell other humans when they want to make them feel better. As if their utter helplessness against the inevitability of time and space is comforting somehow. Venom doesn't understand it.

Eddie just shrugs. “I know,” says. He takes another bite of his food, chews without tasting anything. He thinks again about the letter sitting on his computer, how writing and sending it won't change anything. How could it?

Venom worries that maybe it was the wrong thing to say.

Eddie’s in a sad mood for the rest of the morning. Venom can feel it hanging over both of them, like the fog that hangs over the city at night. When he sits down at the computer, he doesn't work on the letter, ignores it, carefully not thinking about it. He makes a data table and fills it with missing people, instead—dates and ages, anything else useful from the short articles he finds. It's not much. Eddie gives up around noon.

They go out and Eddie talks to people he meets on the street. He feels better again once they're in motion. He asks about the white truck, the missing girl named Em. The people he talks to are mostly young, hanging out around front steps and in the shade of buildings. He talks to a lot of people, gives some of them money even though they still don't have a lot to spare. People always like talking to Eddie, but no one has anything useful to say about the white truck or the girl. No one knew her. No one has seen the white truck around.

Eddie’s phone rings while they're walking back home. His mood brightens instantly when he looks down and sees the caller ID. _Angela Cooper._

“Detective,” he says. “Got anything for me?”

“You sound way too pleased to hear from me, Brock. I think you should get yourself a hobby or something.”

Eddie smiles. “Aw, you know I live only for the sound of your voice, Ange.”

She chuckles softly. “Yeah, well… I got something for you. On that plate you gave me. Truck is registered to a place called Bayside Development. You were right: it's a construction company based in Oakland. That plate’s been ticketed a few times, mostly parking. One moving violation. Driver by the name of Alan Anderson. No criminal record.”

Eddie shoves the phone between his ear and his shoulder and writes all that down, pen flying fast over the paper in his little notebook. “Okay, Ange. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Got those files you asked for, but I can't loan them out, obviously, as they're still active cases. You wanted dates, right?”

“Yeah.”

“There are a lot—it’ll take me a few more days to sift through all of them, but I found seven I think fit the pattern… Dates range from the end of 2017 until 2019. Last one reported missing was in April, 2019. Kids’ ages range from fifteen to twenty-one when they were reported missing. All female.”

Eddie writes that down, too. Venom darts out and catches the phone when it starts to slip, but Eddie doesn't notice.

“That sound like what you're after?” she says.

“Yeah. Yeah, Ange. Thanks.”

“Sure. You owe me one. Hey…” She pauses for a moment, only the sounds of a busy office behind her coming through the phone. “Weren't you supposed to be getting married soon? How’s that going?”

Eddie frowns and looks down. He shoves the notebook back into his pocket, starts twisting the ring on his finger with his thumb. “Ah, that, yeah… That didn't work out.”

She breathes out hard, like a hiss. “Shit, man. I'm sorry. What happened?”

“Well, you know… I fucked everything up. Just like I always do.”

“Wow.” There's another long pause. “I’m sorry, man,” she says again.

Eddie’s not sad about meeting Venom. He's sad that he hurt Annie—that he so easily hurt someone he loves—and he's worried he might do it again without thinking about it, as easily as he's done it before.

Venom’s not worried. They know Eddie won't do that to them.

 _ **You can't change the past**_ **,** Venom says. It's still not a comfort.

* * *

They talk to more people the next day, wander the city, but no one has seen anything. No one knows anything about the missing younglings. Eddie is frustrated. He doesn't want to write and he has no leads. It makes his insides feel tight and unwelcoming. Venom squirms around in the spaces between his organs, but doesn't say anything.

They give up around noon and Eddie drives the bike to a fast food place he likes, buys two of everything they normally order.

Venom was hoping the extra food Eddie bought was for them, but it was really for the police detective they met yesterday. Eddie parks the bike near the bay and they carry the food into the police station and up to the detective. She seems happier to see Eddie today. They sit across from her at the desk and talk about boring human things. Venom waits for Eddie to eat the food sitting in front of them, but he doesn't. The frustration he'd felt this morning is lingering, making his gut twist, making him forget how hungry they are.

The detective has already eaten all the food they brought her. She reaches over and takes one of their fries. Eddie doesn't say anything. Venom tries not to growl at the theft.

She leans back in her chair, kicks her feet up onto the edge of her desk. “I went back and tracked down some of the people who filed the reports. Didn’t find much. But a couple of kids mentioned seeing Anita Jackson get into a white truck with some kind of company logo on the side the night she disappeared.”

Eddie looks up from the burger he hasn't touched. “That wasn't in the missing person report? Why wasn't that investigated?”

She shrugs. “There was no further evidence of a crime. The responding officers chose to omit that detail. For all they knew, that was her dad taking her back home.”

“It wasn't her fucking dad,” Eddie says. His frustration boils up again, like bile. Venom shivers.

“It's still not enough to warrant an investigation, Brock. You know that.” The detective crosses her arms. She’s angry, too, but not at them. “Sometimes shit falls through the cracks. I don’t know why that lead wasn’t investigated, or why it wasn’t in the report. It _should_ have been. And those assholes aren't around anymore to account for it, either.”

Eddie rubs his hand over his head. He wants to chew at the skin of his finger, but thinks that isn't socially acceptable. “This guy was the foreman on eighteen jobs here between 2017 and 2019. He had a ton of opportunities to stash those bodies at any of these places. Just take a look, Ange. That's all I'm asking.”

The detective leans forward again and pushes the food wrappers out of the way so she can sort through the papers on the table. She picks one out and holds it up. “This job site’s a twenty-unit apartment complex now. I drive past this place on my way to work every day. What am I supposed to do with this?”

Eddie shrugs. “I don't know. Get a warrant, or something. That's your job.”

“You think I'm gonna be able to get a warrant to tear down a low-income apartment complex and put twenty families out on the street, based on a hunch from a washed-up reporter, a homeless kid who saw a white truck, and a statement from a witness I've never even seen?”

“Jeez, Ange…” He rubs his hands over his head, pushes down the bad thoughts that threaten again.

She sighs. “Look, Brock. I need something more. You know I do. If you could get your mystery witness to come forward, then we might have something. But until then”—she shrugs—”I can't make a move. You know how it is for me here. Everything’s gotta be by the book.”

“Yeah, got it.” Eddie sweeps his papers back into a pile. He points to the hamburger still sitting on the desk. “You can have that.” He's disappointed that they haven't gotten further, but not surprised.

_**We can do more than the police, Eddie. We know where he lives…** _

Eddie doesn't respond to that, but he's thinking about it—thinking about how good it would feel to rip this guy’s arms off, to sink their teeth into—

“Brock? Hey, you there?”

He shakes his head and looks up. “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.”

She grins at him. “Don't think too hard. Might hurt yourself.”

Eddie smiles, but he doesn’t feel it. He’s still remembering what it's like to be out there in the dark, with the city lights glittering all around them, hunting, hungry. The most dangerous thing in the night. All that power…

_**Yes! What we can do… Together…** _

The detective reaches out and touches Eddie’s hand, startling him, bringing him back to the present, back from _them_.

“I know it's probably too much to ask, but… If there's a real crime here, please don't fuck it up. Let me do my job, okay? Don’t put his name out there before I can make a case. I want to get this guy, same as you do.”

Eddie looks down at his papers. “I won't. I promise,” he says quietly.

The detective pulls her hand away and Eddie tucks the papers back into the folder. “Gotta go. Thanks, Ange.” He doesn't want to look at her, doesn't want to think about the promise he made, just wants to just get out of here.

Venom does, too.

* * *

They’re perched many stories up on a rusted fire escape—far too high to attract prey tonight.

Venom doesn’t mind—they like the city at night, being outside in the cool, wet air, sitting motionless in the dark, watching the streets below. There’s no moon out, and the space between buildings is like the maw of an immense canyon. Their perch is a sheer cliff above the fog and below the clouds, black except for a thousand glittering lights on the surrounding buildings. The orange glow from the streets can’t reach them up here. Even the constant city noise is a muffled drone.

Eddie’s not thinking about anything sad at this moment, not reliving the past or hoping desperately he can fix it. Tonight, he's feeling what they're feeling:

Each breath they take brings them life—toxic oxygen rendered harmless by Eddie’s alien physiology replenishing the energy-producing mechanism in each of their many cells. A breeze hits their face, bringing the scents of food, the strange, bitter smell of wet asphalt, a hint of carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in the exhaust from cars. Eddie shifts his foot slightly when the nerves there send a signal to his brain to move.

Venom savors each and every one of these moments. Each is unique and rich, and worth noting. They are alive. They are together.

It's moments like this when they feel the distinction between them and their host most profoundly. They live in the present. The past is only information. The time before they found Eddie is over and gone, simply a series of experiences to be cataloged and referenced. Sterile data. What's in front of them now is what matters. Their new life here with Eddie is rich with colors and scents and tastes and possibility. And, above all else, with their affection for Eddie...

They wish they could share with him what it’s like to be Klyntar, to not dwell on old things. To accept that the past has happened and to live only in the present, savoring each rich new moment as it comes. And Eddie does see it, but only in fleeting glimpses, before he allows himself to be drawn back into the past.

Eddie blinks and turns away from the splendor of the city spread out beneath them. “Guess we should keep moving, huh?” he says.

_**Sure, Eddie.** _

They're disappointed that they’re not eloquent enough to articulate all of this to Eddie, not smart enough to soothe what's troubling him. But they have a job to do.

* * *

They go back to the alley. _Her_ alley.

It feels empty to Venom—every sense telling them that there's nothing alive in here. But they don't have to wait long before a small, dark shape steps out of the shadows between dumpsters.

“Hey, kid.”

“Hey,” she says. Her dark eyes watch them carefully.

Eddie clears his throat. “So… I've been digging around, and I talked to some people… “ He shrugs and pulls the little notebook out of his pocket, finds the photo he’d tucked inside. He holds it out to her. “Is this the guy?”

The girl steps closer, and then even closer. Eddie’s sense of smell is not great on its own, but between the two of them they should be able to smell something. There's nothing, though—just the smells of alley trash and wet concrete, of rat droppings.

She peers at the photo, but doesn't try to take it. Her body goes absolutely still. “Yeah,” she says. Her face is blank, her eyes are flat, dark spots surrounded by pale skin. “Yeah, that's the guy. That's him. I'd remember him anywhere. What's his name?”

“Alan Anderson.”

She makes a sound that could be a laugh. “He told me his name was John. I guess it shoulda been obvious that was fake.”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Wait…? _He_ told you? You talked to this guy?”

“I mean, Em told me,” she says quickly.

Eddie nods, watches her for a moment, eyes lingering on the dark bruises around her neck that haven't faded at all, her thin wrists. “You okay, kid? You want something to eat? We could go somewhere. My treat. I know a place just around—”

She looks up and fear crosses her face. “No. I can't… I _can't_.” She retreats backward into the alley where the shadows are deepest. “And I won't go to the police either, so don't ask me again.”

Eddie holds his hands up, backs away, too. “Okay, fine. No problem.” He stops near the mouth of the alley, giving her space. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Okay.” She looks back at them with narrowed eyes.

“Why are you always here?”

“What?”

“Why are you always here? Why this alley? You live here, or something?”

“No. I don't live here.” The girl is quiet for a long time, looking around at the brick walls, the dumpster, and the trash, like she's seeing it all for the first time. “This is where… where she died. My friend. The guy promised her twenty bucks, so she got in the truck with him, and he drove her here. And… and then…” She looks down, kicks at some trash on the ground, misses it somehow.

“He drove your friend here?”

“Yeah.”

“And this alley is where she was taken?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie shakes his head. “See… I'm wondering how you could possibly know that.”

She looks up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“Your friend hasn't been found. There was no police investigation. No one even knew she’d been murdered until you told me. How could you know that _this_ is the place she died unless you were here that night?”

She shifts from foot to foot, looks away from them. “I'm not lying.”

“I didn't say you were,” Eddie says, and his voice is gentle. “I'm just asking how you know it happened in this alley.”

She crosses her arms, and her thin, white fingers dig into the fabric. “I just do.”

Eddie sighs. “Okay, kid.” He tucks his notebook away. “Thanks for your help.”

He turns and starts walking toward the street. They're not going to get any more information, he's decided. Not from her. And he doesn't want to push someone who's already been through too much.

Still… They don't have enough yet—just a guy’s name and a description of his truck, a witness who won't come forward, but no real connection to any evidence. No bodies, nothing the police will take seriously. There's got to be another way to get what they need. He can go back to the records, the city building permits—

“ _Wait!_ Don't go. _Please!_ I remember…”

“Yeah?” Eddie stops and turns around.

“In the truck… There was a piece of paper on the seat. A letter, I think. From someplace called… Geo-something?”

“Geo-something?”

“Geo Logic, I think? It was talking about how they were going to test for soil stability or something.”

“Where were they testing?”

“Somewhere near a bay.”

“Which bay?” That could be anywhere around here, Venom realizes.

“I don't know. Sorry. I didn't read the whole thing.”

“How did you happen to read any of it?” This is another thing she shouldn't know, according to Eddie.

Her eyes have gone flat again. “I don't wanna talk about it.”

“Okay, kid,” Eddie says softly. He knows. Or he thinks he does. Why she was in his truck to read the letter. That old sadness surfaces again, incongruous, perplexing. Eddie pushes it back down before it can grow into anything coherent.

* * *

Eddie doesn't want to go home yet, so they wander the city for a while. Not hunting, just walking. The clouds that were gathering finally release their rain and they seek shelter up high again, tucked into a ledge beneath a window made of many pieces of colored glass on the side of a stone building.

Eddie likes it here. It's not very high up, and he feels safe near this old building, comfortable, for reasons Venom can't understand and Eddie won't articulate.

But he's still thinking about something bad. The same thing that was bothering him back in the alley.

Venom comes out, snaking around Eddie’s neck to watch his face.

**“Do you want to talk about it?”**

It’s another thing that happened in the past, over and done with, but somehow it's still hurting Eddie, comes back up from deep inside him, choking him without warning. They don’t mind talking about old things if it will help Eddie feel better.

Eddie snorts, but not because anything is funny. “I don’t think you could understand, V. It’s just… some old shit, you know. Human stuff.” He shrugs. He's uncomfortable talking about this, even with Venom. “I just… I made some dumb mistakes when I was a kid. I did a lot of fucked up shit to get away from my dad… Shit that was probably worse than anything he could do to me.”

Eddie shakes his head, tries to think about something else—the traffic moving slowly through the street below, the way the light through the colored glass behind them makes his gray sweater look like a painting.

Venom wishes they could heal these old wounds. But they don't think this is something they can fix; a stab wound would be easier. Eddie wants closeness and comfort right now, though. Venom can give him that, at least.

He sighs when Venom wraps all the way around him, leans back against the stone wall. “Were any of your other hosts this fucked up?” Eddie says.

They know Eddie means it as a joke and not a serious question— _self-deprecation_ , he'd called it—but Venom thinks they should answer tonight.

 **“Yes,”** they say. **“There was a leonac on Nabir 5 that was very fucked up. It had only five legs.”**

Eddie chuckles at their joke. “A leonac,” he says, stumbling over the pronunciation. “What the fuck, man?” He shakes his head in wonder at the thought of other planets, the vast distances between them.

Most of their other hosts were mindless creatures, devoid of sentience. Easy to inhabit and not dwell on. Not like Eddie at all. But there was one… Maria. _She_ was more fucked up. The things they'd seen in their short time with her were hard to decipher, darker than anything they've ever felt from Eddie. There is so much about her that they still don't understand. They sift through their memories for points that need clarification.

 **“What's heroin?”** They know a lot of what Eddie knows, but everything is just a confusing tangle of half-memories and emotion until he consciously thinks about something. Asking a direct question almost always works.

“Nothing. It's nothing,” Eddie says quickly. He doesn't want to think about this.

Venom immediately regrets asking—they shouldn't have, _so stupid!—_ but a memory rises up anyway before Eddie can stifle it: _sitting in the dark, alone, a peace so profound it feels almost like death, a tingling warmth rushing up through their limbs, and then a deep, comforting cold…_

Not just Eddie’s limbs, though. Because this isn't Eddie’s memory. This is _her_ memory.

“Stop it. _Stop it_ , V,” Eddie mutters. He grabs his head and tugs at his hair. “What the fuck? That's not me. That didn't happen, did it? Why the fuck do I have that shit in my head?”

 **“I'm sorry, Eddie.”** They didn't mean it, they didn't know.

But now they do… Heroin is a drug. The one _she_ was thinking about. She thought about it all the time. Not _wanting_ it—not exactly. She was thinking about how maybe she deserved what was happening to her because of the terrible things she'd done, the mess she'd made of her life. Because of the heroin.

 **“I'm sorry,”** they say again. It won't help.

“It's okay, V,” Eddie says, but the momentary peace he'd felt before is gone. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I knew…” he starts. “I knew she had problems, you know? But she was trying to work through them. I tried to help her out when I could. She didn't want to accept much from me, but I think she was doing okay. I wouldn't have given her money if I thought she was using again. And then Drake came along…” He shakes his head. “She was just trying to get back on her feet, find a place to stay, you know? That's probably why she needed the money so bad.”

He stares out at the dark for a long time, blinking hard. “That bastard,” he mutters.

Venom’s sure he must mean Carlton Drake, but Eddie’s thinking about his father.

* * *

They're very wet by the time they get back to the apartment. Eddie glances over at his laptop while he pulls off his soaked sweatshirt and drops it on the ground near the door. Water seeps out across the floor. He doesn't feel like writing anything. He doesn't want to sleep, either.

“Shower?” he asks.

_**Yeah.** _

Eddie doesn't bother turning the light on in the bathroom—the lights from the alley are more than enough to see by. He ducks his head under the hot water after they get in, and then just stands there with his eyes closed, letting the water flow over them.

He thinks about the letter on the computer, what he wants to say to her mother, but _can't_. About what he could say that might possibly bring comfort without causing more grief. The memory from earlier threatens to rise up again, dark and smothering. _Her_ memory. He shakes his head and deliberately thinks about something else, forces his mind away from _her_.

They emerge through Eddie’s skin, twine around him. They like being out in the water, even if they'd prefer cooler rainwater to this heat.

Eddie’s hand pets over them absently, but he doesn't say anything.

**“Eddie?”**

“Yeah. I'm fine, V,” he says. “I'm just…” Eddie shakes his head. “I need a distraction,” he says suddenly.

They slide around Eddie’s chest and up higher so they can see his face. **“Yeah?”**

“Yes.”

That’s all the permission they need to make Eddie feel good, to touch him everywhere. It's better to be in the water, reminds them sometimes of being with others of their kind. They don't need that anymore, though—they just need Eddie—and they have no regrets about turning their back on the collective, but it's nice to remember what they are, sometimes.

But it’s also good to forget, the way Eddie forgets. To get lost in the simple pleasure of being alive, of sharing everything with someone else.

Eddie’s in a better mood after sex, as he often is. He dresses and makes a sandwich, shoves it into his mouth while staring at his laptop.

“Check this out, V.” Eddie's mouth is full, and he tries to swallow the bite of sandwich quickly so he can keep talking. Venom has to help dislodge it from his throat. Eddie coughs, says, “GeoLogic shows up four times in permits issued to Bayside. Three of those were before 2017, but one of them was in November, 2019. For this job.” Eddie points at the computer.

Venom comes out to stare at the computer screen, draped over Eddie’s shoulders. They don't need to—they can see through their host’s eyes—but Eddie likes it when they do. And they like making Eddie happy.

Eddie shoves the plate with the remains of his sandwich toward them. “Here. You can finish this.” He brushes his hands off and starts scrolling again. “This place is over in Oakland. By the San Leandro Bay, near the 580.”

Venom scoops the sandwich off the plate and swallows it whole. It's not their favorite thing to eat, but they'll take it. **“Let’s go check it out.”**

Eddie hums, pulls a map up on his computer. He should give this information to the detective, he thinks, let her sort it out. But he's tired of waiting around, being ineffective. “Yeah,” he says quietly, almost to himself. “Yeah. Let's go.”

**“What if the bad guy is there?”**

Eddie shrugs. “Then I'll write an article about it later. It's the cops’ job to take him down, though. I made a promise.”

**“What if he’s a really, really bad guy?”**

Eddie sighs this time. “Then we’ll deal with it.” He doesn't want to think about eating people. He still wants to be a hero. But he wants to fight crime with his words, and not their teeth.

Eddie changes the subject. “Anyway… You ready?”

**“I'm always ready.”**

* * *

They ride over the Bay Bridge through the mist hanging above the water. A million glittering lights surround them in the dark.

They come to a low, industrial park on the Oakland side. The air here smells like saltwater and algae, like rotting seaweed. It smells like refined hydrocarbons, too.

Eddie picks up on their thoughts. “Jet fuel,” he says. “The airport’s right across the bay there.” He points out over the black water to a strip of land with almost no lights, no tall buildings. There are no jets flying right now, which Venom is grateful for. They don't think they could stand to be so close to an airport.

The fence around the building site is nine feet tall, topped with loops of razor wire. There's a sign with a drawing of a city silhouette and the words: _Bayside Construction. Luxury condos coming in 2020!_ They come out so they can grab the chainlink with their hands and tear a hole big enough to fit through. The ground on the other side has been bulldozed smooth, ready for construction to begin.

 _This must be recent_ , Eddie says. _It rained yesterday._

Venom’s not used to treating a host as an equal being—talking, solving problems, working together—and Eddie sometimes makes connections between things that aren't immediately obvious. Venom tries to follow his logic: the marks that the bulldozer left are still visible, the rain hasn't washed them away, therefore, this must have just happened.

 **“Got it,”** they say. Eddie _is_ smart. When he needs to be…

The sound of car tires moving on asphalt interrupts their thoughts. They crouch down low to the ground, near the hole they made in the fence, blending into the shadows near the dirt. A car door closes, from somewhere across the lot. A light sweeps by over their head, lands on the side of one of the trailers—a bright, white circle that darts around over the smooth ground. Someone else is here.

“Hey! Anyone in there?” a voice calls.

Venom growls, baring their teeth. He sounds large enough. He’ll make a fine meal, delicious…

 _No!_ Eddie says. _We can't… He's just a security guard._

They growl their displeasure. **“He works for the dick who stole the youngling.”**

 _Pretty sure this guy’s innocent. Get back inside so we don't give him a stroke or something._ Eddie's thinking they could still outrun him if they have to. Venom agrees. They seep back down inside Eddie before the person can see them. And they wait.

The man gets back in his car and leaves. The night is silent again.

There's something here. They noticed it when they were crouched down next to the fence. _**Eddie…**_

Eddie is smart when he needs to be—he knows how humans think, and why they do the things they do. He knows about patterns and clues. But, sometimes a Klyntar’s senses are needed to solve a mystery. _**There's a smell here,**_ they say.

“What smell?” Eddie asks. He's stopped moving forward, and his heart is beating faster.

It's faint, but unmistakable, even over the powerful scent of low tide. _**Dead flesh. Rot.**_

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eddie mutters. He swallows hard. “Where?”

Eddie can smell it too, but Venom has more experience using smell as a sense to track and find things. Venom comes back out, now that the threat of discovery is gone. They let their long tongue loll out, tasting the air. The sweet smell of rot is easy to find. They lope across the vacant lot, toward the pair of trailers and construction debris.

 **“It’s here.”** The ground here looks the same as the rest, but the smell is much stronger. They reach down and claw at the earth, digging deep. The dirt is damp just underneath the surface and easy to move. They don’t need to dig far before they uncover black fabric over purple, bloated flesh, a human hand, partially skeletonized. The smell of decay intensifies.

 _Oh God! Fuck,_ Eddie thinks. He’s distressed. Venom reels back from the hole. _Don’t dig anymore, V. Leave it._

They back away, toward the fence. Eddie wanted to find this, that's why they came here. He's eaten live people before, but the sight of this body has made him very upset. His emotions are hard to read. Venom tries to make sense of it all, but they just can’t. There’s too much all at once.

Eddie just stands there, breathing hard, hands shaking. “Shit,” he says. He looks around at the vacant lot, the dark stain of the hole they dug, back out at the black water across the bay.

_**We need to go. That human might come back.** _

Eddie closes his eyes. “ _Shit_ ,” he whispers.

* * *

_**Eddie,**_ they say.

Their host ignores them. He’s staring up at a window, straddling the bike which has been off for a while now, the slowly cooling engine still ticking. Venom finds the predictable sound annoying.

It's early in the morning—before dawn—but there's a light on inside, behind the window. Their quarry is up there—the man who killed the younglings. _Alan Anderson._ Turns out, he only lives a few miles from the place where they found the body.

_**Eddie!** _

Eddie finally stirs, blinking. “Yeah?”

_**We should eat him.** _

Eddie scrubs his hands over his face. “I don't know, V,” he says slowly. He’s conflicted again. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and scrolls through his contacts, stops at _Detective Cooper._ “Maybe it’s not the right thing to do.”

 _ **We’ve eaten other people. This guy is worse than they were. He deserves it.**_ Their host knows this guy is worse—killing younglings just for the pleasure of it, not for food or money. Eddie finds the thought of that horrifying, just imagining what this man did, those poor kids…

“I know, V. And, yeah, you're right. But… those other people we… _ate…_ ” Eddie swallows. “They were trying to hurt us, like, right that second. This guy is…” He shrugs, shakes his head. “This guy’s worse, yeah, but he's just up there, probably just reading or… or getting up. Having coffee. I don't know. It's different.”

 _ **You'll regret it if we don't eat him.**_ Venom’s not sure if this is true, but Eddie regrets a lot of the things he's done or hasn't done so it seems like a safe bet.

“Maybe,” Eddie agrees quickly. “But I promised Ange I wouldn't fuck this up.” He closes his eyes hard. He won’t think about hunting, about the absolute thrill of tearing into flesh and bone, the freedom, the mindless joy of consuming still-living prey. “I'm tired of fucking everything up.”

He opens his eyes again, looks down at the phone still in his hand. “I want to eat him,” he says in a whisper. “I want to. _So bad_. But if we eat him, no one will know what he did. The families, the friends… Those people won't get closure. They won't ever find out what happened to those kids.” His mind goes back to the letter that's still sitting unfinished on his computer. “It's important, I think… that they know what happened.”

He hits _call_ before he can think twice about it, before Venom can stop him. The phone stays silent for a long time, waiting, but then she picks it up.

“What the fuck, Brock? It's three in the morning.” Her voice is very quiet.

Eddie takes a deep breath. “Sorry to wake you, Ange, but this is big.”

* * *

Eddie spends the next few days wondering if he made the right choice, pacing around their tiny apartment, and bothering the detective for updates.

 _Just be patient_ , she writes back. _Chill the fuck out_. She’ll have something for him soon.

He writes the bones of a story, about a child-killer stalking the streets. A predator hiding under a veneer of blandness. A monster who drove a white truck. He chews his fingers until they bleed, until Venom has to take control and stop him—a subconscious push that redirects Eddie’s focus.

On the third day, the detective calls Eddie and tells him to come down to the police station. Eddie’s blood pressure increases to nearly dangerous levels; Venom has to step in—open Eddie’s blood vessels back up so their blood can flow freely. He's afraid they're in trouble, Venom realizes.

He shuffles nervously through the lobby and into the elevator, eyes darting around. He still smiles at the people they pass, though, pretends everything is fine. Venom prepares to take action if the police decide to arrest Eddie.

The police detective is waiting for them at her desk. Eddie glances warily at the two paper cups of coffee sitting there. “This one for me?”

The detective smiles up at him and pushes one of the cups across the desk toward them. “Yeah. Thank you gift.”

Eddie’s confused. “I thought you were still pissed at me for breaking into that construction site?”

She glances around, like she's afraid someone might overhear what they're saying. “Yeah, well... I was able to smooth that over. Wasn't easy, but it turns out your tampering with the crime scene’s not gonna matter too much…” She grins up at them. Her teeth are so straight and white, compared to Eddie’s. “Anderson confessed. He also agreed to disclose the locations of six more victims in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. We got him.”

“No shit?” Eddie’s happy now, too. And relieved that he didn't fuck everything up again. “That's great.”

“Yeah, joint investigation between Oakland and SFPD, with yours truly as the lead. So, I just wanted to thank you. And, you know”—she waves at the desk—“give you this coffee as a token of my appreciation.”

Eddie pulls his notebook out of his back pocket. “Plus, an inside scoop, right?” He's happy for her.

She laughs like this is an old joke between them, waves him off. “Yeah, yeah. Least I could do, I guess.”

“So…” Eddie flips to the first blank page. “California hasn't executed anyone since 2006, right? Why’s this guy so—”

Eddie glances down at the desk. There's a picture stuck to the cover of the folder with a paperclip. It's of a youngling with long, light hair and dark eyes, a colorful, striped shirt. She looks familiar to Venom. Eddie reaches down and almost touches the picture, pulls his hand away again.

“What's this?” he says. His heart is beating faster than it should be. Venom is instantly on alert for danger.

The detective looks down at the picture. “That’s our first victim. Emma Taylor.” She frowns at them. “You okay, Brock? You're lookin’ kinda pale.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm…” he says, and swallows. He feels dizzy, scared. Venom’s not sure what's causing the panic—Eddie’s thoughts are too quick to follow, abstract. They don’t sense any danger here.

Eddie already knows the murder victim’s name, of course, even though the police haven't released it to the public yet, but they've never seen a picture of her before. The picture is what made Eddie scared. Venom thinks about the photo again.

**_It's the girl from the alley._ **

They didn't recognize her at first because her clothes are different in the photo. These ones aren't black or too big. Her hair is shorter.

 _What the fuck?_ Eddie thinks. He looks up at the detective. “Did…? Did she have a twin sister or something?”

“Uh, no. I don't think so. You sure you're alright? You wanna sit down?”

Eddie grabs at the chair back, twists it around. “Yeah. Yeah I better…” He falls into the chair just as the detective reaches for his arm.

She gets up and comes around the desk, hovering over them. “Whoa, Brock… You sick or something? You want me to call someone? You're scaring me.” Her hands reach out again, but she pulls them back.

Eddie waves her away. “No, I'm fine. Sorry. Just got a little lightheaded. I'm good. I'm okay now.” He looks over at the photo again, almost reluctantly. It’s clearly the girl from the alley—the girl with no smell. Eddie thinks about the hand in the grave, rotten flesh pulling away from bone… He swallows down the urge to vomit. “How did… How did she die? When?”

The detective sits back down behind her desk, but she’s watching Eddie warily. “ME says strangulation. She had some damage to the cartilage in her throat. Just like Anita. Emma’s body was in much worse shape. She's been dead six to eight months according to the autopsy. No one even knew she was missing. We ID’d her based on dental records. Her family thought she was living with her boyfriend in Portland. They're coming out next week.”

“Oh,” Eddie says. His mind is far away, trying to reconcile this new information with what he knows. He's wondering if he'd just imagined it all, subconsciously noticed the clues, read about the disappearances in the paper, heard rumors of a white truck, come up with a suspect, dug up the bodies on their own. If he's finally lost it…

It's not true, they know. That's not what happened. _**No. She was there. We talked to her.**_ They would know if it was all just in Eddie’s head.

_How, V? How the fuck…?_

The detective says, “Don't print any of those details yet, okay? Not until we've had a sit down with the family.”

Eddie tries to focus on her. “Yeah. Of course.” He wouldn't do that. He likes to think he’s not the type of reporter who would post shit like that—shit that the family, the people who knew her, might read about it in the paper. “I won’t,” he says, but he’s already got everything memorized. For later.

“You sure you want to talk right now? We could always do this some other time.”

“No.” Eddie sits up straighter, sets his notebook down on the desk. “Now’s good. I’m fine. Just not sleeping too well lately, I guess. Go ahead.”

This story won’t wait.

* * *

Eddie throws the newspaper back onto the coffee table, gets up, and goes to the window.

It's his byline on the front page of the _Chronicle_ , but it doesn't bring the usual rush of adrenaline, the thrill they feel when they publish a great story.

Eddie stands at the window for a long time, staring at the rain falling in the alley. Venom thinks it's probably an improvement over the endless pacing he's been doing. Their apartment isn't big enough to make it interesting.

The silence stretches on.

Watching the rain is boring. Standing here is boring. There is so much _more_ they could be doing right now…

 ** _Starving,_** they grump.

Eddie closes his eyes and presses his forehead to the glass. It's nice and cool against their overheated skin. “I know,” he says.

When they get this way—desperate for food, for _real_ food—they both get irritable. Eddie denies and denies it, writes, watches TV, pretends to be thinking about anything else, tries to repress the hunger until he just can't anymore.

Venom waits. They're used to this by now.

Eddie makes a low, frustrated sound against the glass and turns around. “Guess we should go out, huh?”

 _**No shit**_ **.**

Eddie snorts. “Smartass.” He's resigned to eating someone tonight. Not the person he really wants to eat—that asshole’s in a jail cell somewhere, untouchable—but… “I gotta do one thing first,” he says.

* * *

They don't walk very far before Eddie stops at a blue metal box on a corner.

 _Mailbox,_ he says when Venom makes a questioning sound.

Eddie takes out the envelope he'd stuffed inside his jacket before they left their apartment, stares down at the address on the front:

_Brenda Oviedo_

_857 Lehigh Ave, Apt A_

_Newark, NJ 07112_

He opens the mailbox and places the letter carefully inside, holds still for a moment, anxiousness roiling in his gut. The slamming of the little metal door echoes down the street. It feels momentous to Venom, like Eddie’s shutting a door on something inside himself, a door he might never open again.

He stares down at the mailbox for another long moment. “Okay, V, let's go.”

* * *

They start out hunting, but Eddie walks them to the alley.

Then, they just stand there in the wet dark, waiting, listening. It's silent except for the dripping and hush of the rain.

Venom twists with impatience in Eddie’s chest. Eddie ignores them.

Finally he speaks. “Hey, kid,” he says, voice low, barely above a whisper. “I guess you’re not around anymore. If you ever were.” He takes a long, deep breath, lets it back out. “But, if you can hear me… I just want to say that… I’m sorry for what happened. And I’m sorry that pretty much everyone in your life failed you. But we got the guy. He confessed. He's going to prison. He won't be able to hurt anyone again. I don't know if that's any kind of comfort, but I guess it's the best we could give you. You know, considering…”

Eddie doesn't seem like he's expecting an answer, but he waits, anyway, listening. Venom can't hear anything from the alley, not even a delicious rat. There's nothing here tonight.

 _ **We should go,**_ they say. They need to eat very soon or they’ll get sick. Even Eddie can feel that, but he wants to linger here for some reason.

Eddie shakes his head. “ _Man_ , I can't believe you're just okay with this.”

_**With what?** _

“The fact that she was dead this whole time. She was in a shallow grave in Oakland while I was fuckin’ talking to her right here.” He shakes his hands at the alley.

Venom curls around, squirms inside. Eddie is upset, but he shouldn’t be. If they could come out right now and shrug, they would do it. They say the first thing that comes to mind: _**There are more things in heaven and earth, Eddie, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.**_

“Did you…? Did you just quote Shakespeare at me?”

 _ **It's in your head for some reason.**_ They sift through Eddie’s thoughts. _**It's a play about a ghost.**_

“Hamlet is not _about_ a ghost,” Eddie protests.

 _ **Whatever. There's a ghost in it. That's why you thought of it.**_ They're a little tired, and a lot hungry.

“I still can't believe you're not freaked out by this.”

Venom considers this. Should they be?

The Klyntar are not philosophers. They don't seek to understand, merely to conquer and consume. They have seen many things, and the hive mind remembers them all. The sum of their billions of years of accumulated knowledge might be surprising, even shocking, they realize, to a being limited to just a single, short lifetime in a small corner of the galaxy.

They’re not used to talking about this shit. But they do their best to explain to Eddie. _**Many cultures in the galaxy accept that some essence remains once the body dies. They believe something must exist apart from the flesh. Maybe it gives their limited existence meaning. The Klyntar do not worry about ghosts, but other species do.**_

“You're saying there are ghosts in space, V? Space ghosts?”

_**Yes.** _

Eddie nods. “Okay. Sure. Why the hell not?”

He’s not satisfied with that answer, but he’s not freaking out anymore, so Venom considers this a win. Now, if they could just eat something…

 _ **She's not here anymore,**_ they point out. Maybe Eddie will get moving if they state this very obvious fact.

Eddie looks around the empty alley. “No, she's not,” he says. He doesn't seem surprised at all, like he already knew what they would find when they came here.

_**So… Why are we still here?** _

Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t know... I just… Some people say ghosts disappear once whatever was keeping them around gets resolved. Like, for example, the motherfucker who killed them goes to prison for life. Not sure I believe that shit, but...” He shrugs.

Venom thinks about it. _**In Hamlet, the king’s ghost wants Hamlet to avenge his death,**_ they say slowly, details becoming clearer as they remember along with Eddie every time he's seen the play, read it. _**The ghost can't rest until the murder is revealed.**_

“Yeah, that's right. I don't know…” Eddie scratches at his head. “Maybe that's why I was thinking about Hamlet.”

They grunt in agreement. _Interesting._ The human concept of ghosts reminds them of Eddie’s letter, for some reason, the way mailing it made Eddie’s whole body feel lighter, like something heavy had left them when they put the envelope in the blue box. Maybe ghosts aren't the only things that disappear when the truth is revealed. They will have to think about this later, during the long, quiet hours when Eddie’s asleep.

 _ **Hamlet is definitely a play about a ghost,**_ they say, just to be obstinate.

Eddie snorts and shakes his head. “Yeah, okay, whatever you say, V. Just one more thing…” He stops at the mouth of the alley, turns around to look at the empty darkness again, the shadows that refuse to step away from walls. “Bye, kid. See you around, I guess,” he says.

_**Can we eat now?** _

Eddie shrugs. “Yeah. Fuck it. Let's eat someone.”

And they walk back out into the city lights.

* * *

_Dear Brenda Oviedo,_

_You don't know me, but I knew your daughter, Maria. She was my friend. I'm writing this letter because I think it's important you know the truth._

_I’m guessing the police or the FBI told you Maria died of a drug overdose. That's probably the most convenient story they could spin. Whatever they said to you, though, it's a lie. Maria was getting clean. She was doing well. I know she was going to call you soon, once she had her own place, to let you know she was sorry and that she was trying to turn her life around. That chance got taken from her._

_What I’m about to tell you is going to sound crazy. Believe me_ , _I know_ — _sometimes I have trouble believing what’s happened in the last few months. But it’s also the truth._

_So, please, try to keep an open mind…_


End file.
